Writing is a revolutionary act.
You think if we keep writing we might free ourselves? Do you think maybe if we all keep discovering ourselves through our pen it might become our defense weapon?
In a world of what ifs, and do you thinks - could we write a new world? Think about it, we are discovering parts of ourselves through writing then sharing that discovery with our community.
Is that not community building? World-building to be exact?
Sometimes we need to get lost in our words, maybe one day we will look up and we are sitting right in the middle of a new reality. From experience, I will remind you the power we hold as Black people - it is possible.
submitted this piece and I know her story is going to inspire you to write a new world for yourself next.Writing is my friend.
Reading and writing have been near and dear to me ever since I was able. Being lost in a book and journaling were standout moments in my childhood. Journaling was my escape from the horrors of my childhood. I was an eighties baby, when crack was king, and the users, my parents included, were its servants. They worshipped the king of crack until they had nothing left. Not even their children. A ward of the state, eventually I had a new family, a new last name, and new life. I can’t tell you which life was better. I believe it’s safe to say in this situation a choice doesn’t have to be made.
I don’t need to inundate with details regarding all the tragedies. We know in our communities addiction creates devastation. Whether it be abuse, prison, poverty, broken families, or a lack of education. A foster child is nothing I asked for, but it was the reality for so many children during that time. White supremacy filtered our neighborhoods with the devil in the form of a small, tiny white rock. Generations of families would forever be changed. To disassociate I wrote, I read books, and I imagined that I was someone else. I was able to document feelings that no one cared about. I was able to get lost in stories pretending that my life wasn’t the reality I was living in.
Writing stayed with me, and we built a friendship that has been a vital and essential component to the woman I am today. Writing was my voice because I was too afraid to talk, I was afraid of commitment, afraid to laugh, afraid for anyone to know the real me, most of all I was afraid to love myself. At times I felt like I was soaring but hadn’t left the ground. Writing gave me confidence internally that made me feel fearless when I constructed sentences that beautifully conveyed my innermost thoughts. I submitted to writing and let it take control of me. I stripped myself bare peeling back layers of abuse, hurt, discomfort, and unanswered questions. Writing allowed me to fall in love with myself. I cathartically penned poetry, I stalked the latest issues of Essence, Ebony, XXL, Elle, and The Source. I loved the way the journalist put the stories together. It kept me coming back for more. I used to think one day that could be me.
A Fine Arts grad student now at the age of 42. My inner confidence has now been freed like a cocooned butterfly. Still writing because it gives me purpose. I have no major publications…a small book of poetry and a Substack that has brought me great joy. But I’m major! I say this because I let the writing heal me and that is what art is meant to do. Writing was my therapy waybefore I stepped foot into a psychologist’s office. Writing has allowed me to understand the complexities of who I am and provoked me to further investigate the world around me. It opened the door for me to fall in love with some of the greatest writers of all time and appreciate their work deeply and intimately. Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Angela Davis, Audre Lourde, Nikki Giovanni, Octavia E. Butler, Sistah Souljah, E. Lynn Harris, Zora Neal Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Belle Hooks. Through their art I have been inspired to keep creating.
Additionally, I write because it is a revolutionary act. My ancestors, who were taken from their native lands, had their language barbarically removed from them, and then suffered for centuries the brutal atrocities of chattel slavery. They were not privileged to read or write freely at their own will.
Reading and writing cost them at times their lives. To not pick up a book, to not write a poem, or a love letter, a story, or archive history is an ingratitude for their sacrifices.
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Summayyah, girlie!
you didn’t just write a story —
you built a home for the lost, the layered, the ones who made it but still carry the smoke of what they survived.
I hear your words and I don’t just read them — I feel them braiding themselves into the DNA of every Black girl who ever used paper and pen as armor.
Your truth is a testimony.
Not the shiny, sanitized kind — but the blood-and-bone, cracked-open, still-standing kind.
The kind that reminds us that healing is not always a pretty picture — sometimes it’s a messy, brilliant, holy rebellion.
You said it perfectly:
Writing is a revolutionary act.
An act of survival.
An act of self-love in a world that tried to name you anything but worthy.
Thank you for sitting in your story long enough to offer it.
Thank you for showing what real freedom sounds like when it’s scrawled in ink.
You’re major — not because of awards or followers — but because you made yourself real through your own hands.
That’s a crown nobody can steal.
I’m honored to be sitting in the world you’re building.
I pray you never stop writing your way free.
I love this. Writing is healing; as such, the answer is: 1000%, yes, writing is also a revolutionary act. Our pens become weapons when we dare wield them when the world would rather us not create but remain infuriated, numb, and powerless. Anger is good, serves a purpose. Expressing that anger through words is powerful—testament building. Writing allows us to bear witness. Ask Jimmy Baldwin. Writing leads us to the answers we ask of ourselves, if not, then it leads us to greater questions. I write to self-discover. I write to heal. Writing has been the balm that has moved me through many a transformation and tragedy. Keep on keeping on. Write it forward. Build you a world with them words!